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British hostage held by IS worked for aid groups

An image grab taken from a video released by Islamic State and identified by private terrorism monitor SITE Intelligence Group on Sept. 2, 2014, purportedly shows footage of a masked militant in a desert landscape threatening to kill David Cawthorne Haines.(Photo: SITE Intelligence Group, AFP/Getty Images)

David Cawthorne Haines, the hostage reportedly beheaded Saturday by the Islamic State, worked for non-profit aid groups and may have run a company based in Croatia.

The Islamic State released video it claims shows the beheading of Haines that appears to be intended as a threat to countries supporting military action in the Middle East, according to news reports.

In a video that was obtained and posted online Sept. 2 by the SITE Intelligence Group, a hooded man was shown beheading American journalist Steven Sotloff and warning that Haines will be next.

"We have seen a video that purports to be the murder of U.S. citizen Steven Sotloff by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)," said Bernadette Meehan, a National Security Council spokeswoman, in a statement. "The intelligence community is working as quickly as possible to determine its authenticity. If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends."

Tiffany Easthom, a spokeswoman for Nonviolent Peaceforce, a civilian peacekeeping group based in Belgium, said Haines had done some security work for the organization for about six months in South Sudan 2012 and was working for another organization, France-based ACTED, when he was kidnapped last year in Syria.